We caught up with Fiachra Treacy from from Irish indie-rock band Columbia Mills to talk about the release of their new album ‘CCTV’, how they craft their tracks and melodies.
You guys have released your sophomore album ‘CCTV’ how does it feel getting to share these tunes with the world?
As we produced the album ourselves, we have been very involved throughout the whole process. This can be great as we make sure the album is exactly how we want it to be. The downside to it is that you become immersed in a bubble. The process from writing, rehearsing, structuring, production, artwork, packaging and posting the album out can become a bit overwhelming and its hard to see the wood from the trees. By sharing the music to the world you begin to see it (or hear it) through other peoples eyes (or ears) and it gives us a renewed vigour and love for the music. The songs take a new life and its very exciting to see where they go.
You guys are always developing and layering your sound and this has resulted in ambitious, passionate and impactful pieces of music. Do you guys strive to add new dynamic layers to your sound and keep moving and progressing in new exciting ways with your music?
For us the most important thing is that we have songs. Once we have the song then we can work on the development of the sounds around it. That is where we have so much fun. We throw tonnes of ideas from guitars, drums ,drum machines, bass and synths and then we pare it back to whatever compliments the song. If it doesn’t compliment the song then we get rid of it.When making an album we thrive to make sure there is a uniformity to the sound of the songs without them all sounding the same. We spend a lot of time going through different sounds to find a balance between our post punk routes and the more contemporary electronic sounds that we love. We will allow a song go to places in a rehearsal and see where it ends up. If we can keep it interesting without being too self indulgent we will record it and try get it on the album.
You guys provide some first rate musicianship and songwriting, talk us through your song writing process ?
As I said the song is always the most important thing for us now. The lyrics, the story behind the song, the feeling it gives us, the place it brings us in our minds. It must mean something. I sometimes write a song and it just doesn’t make sense to me, I can’t relate it to any experience I’ve had, or anyone I know has had, so it doesn’t get used. The initial seed of the song can be planted in so many ways and that’s what makes us a band. There is a lot of songs I may bring fully formed or I can take an idea from a rehearsal, a beat , a synth line, a guitar line, a bass line and start singing over it. It will then get stuck inside my brain and its given a bit of a rinse through whatever is going on in my head. I tend not to write anything down until its nearly finished. Unfortunately for me that usually occurs at the worst time. I’ll run to the toilet and sing it into my phone or write it down on a scrap of paper. Some of the best stuff tends to come at that point between being asleep and awake. It works wonders for my insomnia. It’s also great to have music we recorded from rehearsals or parts that we send to our what’s app group that I can work on when these feelings come. I now feel like this is something we do, we write songs, its no longer a step into the unknown.
You have injected some synths and electronic elements into this album especially in ‘Isolate’ and the latter half of ‘Car Crash TV’
We have to attribute the electronics in both of those songs to our newest member Ken. Ken joined us at the beginning of writing this album and he adds so much to our sound. I remember he sent me back ‘Isolate’ having put his electronic parts on it and I just said ‘fuck yea’ that works. It’s got a disco ‘Donna Summer’ vibe that none of us would have thought of. It took the song to another place and gave the album a special moment. The latter part of CCTV came from one of our first rehearsals with Ken. As I said it was always important to let a song go somewhere and see where it ends up. We had the start written but it didn’t tell enough of the story so we let it grow and go into an electronic crescendo with Ken. This really helped finish the story and made so much more sense to us.
I love the heartfelt melodies you guys provide. They are filled with nostalgia and powerful rushes of emotion for example in ‘Car Crash TV’ ( such a wonderful song) – How do you come up with these?
I honestly don’t know the answer to that. It’s why I completely adore music. To pull something from your mind that works or to find something melodic that can create a feeling of nostalgia or emotion is truly magic. I can’t read or write music and I’ve never learned an instrument correctly so I rely on my mind to conjure up melodies. I sometimes find myself humming something and realise that it doesn’t exist or I wake up with a melody that was left there while I slept 🙂 I have always loved emotionally charged music and have listened since I was a very young child. Even now I will listen to any genre of music if it makes me feel something. That to me has always been so important. The words will come from whatever is going on in my life.
Likewise you guys flood your songs with beautiful lamenting or western-eque guitar lines that sort of tie the songs together with a sublime delicate thread. But perhaps what makes these so great is where and when you place these guitar lines in the song. How do you guys decide this?
Again it’s a group decision to compliment the song. The placement of each part, and in particular the guitar parts, is so important for us. Ste will gladly stand still for 4 minutes and not play any guitar and then play where it’s needed. It’s not a trait that many lead guitarists have. There is nothing worse than someone self pleasing (or wanking as we call it 😉 over a song and destroying the beauty. Again our ethos is to compliment the song and then get the fuck out of the way. Ste’s love of that twin peaks sound with lots of reverb gives the guitar lines space to breath.
The songs have a strong country – esque backbone which I think is what gives them the heartwarming and wholesome tone. Is this a trait you guys actively try to maintain through your songs?
It is funny you say that as it was the first thing Rob Kirwan (produced our first album) said. We are a country band with an indietronic sound. Country songs will always tell a story and contain a lot of heart, be they happy or sad. We honestly never tried to do this but I guess its the nature of writing from the heart. I listened to a lot of Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and Dr Hook as a very young child so I can thank my Da for that. I was always trying to figure out what songs were about, and loved when someone would tell me the story behind it and everything would click. For me music has always been story telling and I think that’s the main trait of country music.
You guys write songs that really hit home with people and evoke an emotional reaction,does it surprise you when you hear what other people are taking from the songs or how they interpret your music and lyrics?
It has always been important to leave a lot to the imagination when it comes to lyrics. Not to give too much away and allow people to fill in the blanks. I’ll certainly guide the song towards a particular situation and they all mean something very particular to me but letting people create their own world within a song is very important to us. It is very rare that people get the total wrong idea but that’s fine. Most people will find the mood and connect it with an event in their own lives and I love that. That’s what the music is for. To escape and to relate. To feel someone else has gone through the same experience and you are not alone.
There is a twilight hue over each of the tracks with a sort of desert vibe. Was this a conscious decision to create that atmosphere within each track?
Again you’ve hit the nail on the head. We talk about the desert vibes a lot. We use the guitars and synth pads to create a space that allows the song just enough space to breathe which stimulates evocative thoughts to emanate (well that’s the idea)I think it was definitely a conscious decision when we were creating our sound but I think now it is just ingrained in what we do.
”Stimulates evocative thoughts to emanate” What a wonderful and poetic way to express the process. For you guys what is the stand out track on the album?
This has changed so many time for us which I suppose is a good sign. Speaking for myself ‘You’re not the answer’ really hits me as it was written from a very personal place. At the moment though I’m really buzzing from ‘The Greatest Love’. When we recorded the album I think Car Crash TV was the one. This will all change once it’s out and you start hearing other peoples experiences with the tracks.
Was it difficult choosing what tracks you were going to put on the album and in what order?
This was much easier than we thought it would be. We managed to play them all live at some stage (in some form) before we finished the album and we could see what worked and what didn’t. There were a few songs that we played too much and the magic you get from recording something new had gone so we set them aside. When making ‘an album’ of songs , we really think about ‘an album’ and will write songs that tell a certain story overall and individually. This certainly helps to whittle them down.
You guys have garnered huge radio support here and in the UK including John Kennedy Radio X, RTE Radio 1, Ed Smith (Today FM) choosing you as his Play Irish Artist of the week and ‘Recent and Decent’ on Today FM, Dan Hegartys (2FM) Track of The Week, and heavy rotation on Paul Mc Loones Today FM show, as well as heavy airplay across all national and regional radio stations. That must feel pretty good. Can you remember the first time you heard one of your songs on the radio?
First of all, we are so thankful when we get support from radio. We really don’t expect it. We haven’t written any nicely packaged 3 min songs yet so when we get radio play we know it is because these people genuinely like our music and it blows us away. The first person to play us was Paul McLoone and he has gotten behind us ever since.Our manager sent our first single ‘Never gonna Look At You The same’ in to him and he played it that night. I tuned in the rest of the week and heard it while driving alone. I got quite emotional and felt a lot of self doubt lifting. It was quite an experience. We put everything into music and make a lot of sacrifices, so to hear it being played on the radio is an amazing boost and gives you the feeling that you are doing something right.
Due to this strange covid 19 times your show on the 24th April has been postponed and rescheduled for September 18th what can fans expect ?
It will be a very emotional night so expect an outpouring of emotion from us. Knowing now how fragile things can be, there will be no holding back.We will be celebrating the release of the album but it will now be much more than that. Celebrating being able to be together again, celebrating live music, celebrating life. Having been unable to play live has helped us realise how much we need to do it, so we plan to leave everything on the stage that night. Hopefully people will have taken the songs to their hearts by then and we can make this the best gig we’ve ever done.
Do you guys have any advice for someone who wants to start a band?
Pick like minded people to play the music you love with. Don’t change to get on a certain scene. Scenes end and the only constant that remains is the music you love yourself. Play the music you love and you will never let the stumbling blocks trip you up for too long. Don’t be afraid to write a song.
Get used to €2 chicken fillet roles.
What’s next for Columbia Mills?
We are writing album number three so we are diving in again while all this is going on. We are really buzzing from some of the ideas so can’t wait to finish some of them off. Once we can rehearse we will be putting a new live show together for the Autumn gigs. We will also flesh out the new songs and hopefully get them recorded very soon.Apart from that it’s impossible to tell. We would love to tour this album and will do everything we can to do so. We are hopeful things can get back to normal and we can push on from here.
You can stream ‘CCTV’ below
Author : Danu
